The historical version of the myths came far too rudely into
collision with the popular faith, when it declared the gods
directly to be men; Carneades called even their existence in
question, and Epicurus denied to them at least any influence on
the destinies of men. Between these systems and the Roman religion
no alliance was possible; they were proscribed and remained so.
Even in the writings of Cicero it is declared the duty of a citizen
to resist Euhemerism as prejudicial to religious worship; and if the
Academic and the Epicurean appear in his dialogues, the former has
to plead the excuse that, while as a philosopher he is a disciple
of Carneades, as a citizen and -pontifex- he is an orthodox
confessor of the Capitoline Jupiter, and the Epicurean has even
ultimately to surrender and be converted.

No one of these three
systems became in any proper sense popular. The plain intelligible
character of Euhemerism exerted doubtless a certain power of
attraction over the Romans, and in particular produced only too
deep an effect on the conventional history of Rome with its at
once childish and senile conversion of fable into history; but it
remained without material influence on the Roman religion, because
the latter from the first dealt only in allegory and not in fable,
and it was not possible in Rome as in Greece to write biographies
of Zeus the first, second, and third.